What took place in the past few months is, in the best case scenario, not more than a negligible decrease in the number of housing units that were built in settlements.
By Dror Etkes
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/settlement-freeze-it-was-barely-a-slowdown-1.316074
The official statistics supplied by the Central Bureau of Statistics describe the story behind the 10-month construction moratorium in the West Bank. The story can be called many things but "freeze" is certainly not one of them. What took place in the past few months is, in the best case scenario, not more than a negligible decrease in the number of housing units that were built in settlements.
The data that appeared in the bureau's tables clearly show that. At the end of 2009, the number of housing units that were actively being built on all the settlements together amounted to 2,955. Three months later, at the end of March 2010, the number stood at 2,517. We are therefore talking about a drop of a little more than 400 housing units - some 16 percent of Israeli construction in the West Bank over that period.
The sounds of lamentation and wailing coming from the settler functionaries, for whom moaning is a profession, shouldn't surprise anyone. After all, they did not cease to whine even when Ehud Barak, "the leader of the peace camp," built 4,700 housing units for them in 2000, the only entire year he held the position of prime minister.
But the truth is that the settlers know better than anyone else that not only did construction in settlements continue over the last 10 months, and vigorously, but also that a relatively large part of the houses were built on settlements that lie east of the separation fence, such as Bracha, Itamar, Eli, Shilo, Maaleh Mikhmas, Maon, Carmel, Beit Haggai, Kiryat Arba, Mitzpeh Yeriho and others.
Jeff Halper interviews one Palestinian who is trying to hold on to his land despite the 'settlement' spread...
The real story behind the PR stunt known as the freeze took place in fact in the months prior to that, during which the settlers, with the assistance of the government, prepared well for the months of hibernation foisted upon them. In the half year that preceded the declaration of the freeze, which started at the end of November 2009, dozens of new building sites sprang up, especially in isolated and more extreme settlements east of the fence.
Thursday 30 September 2010
What Freeze?
What settlement freeze?
Philip Weiss: Colonists in occupied Hebron pour concrete for four buildings
Two days ago I visited the occupied Hebron area with Jeff Halper and Salim Shawamreh of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions. I shot this video at Kiryat Arba, a religious ‘settlement’ on stolen Palestinian lands in the hills outside Hebron. You can see that the settlement freeze that has supposedly stopped construction of illegal colonies in the West Bank and that is due to expire in three days is being openly flouted. Look closely on the right in this video and toward the beginning you will see a white concrete truck leaving the settlement. Then you will see a crane for pouring concrete arched over forms on the second floors of four new houses. And if you look very closely, about halfway through the video, you will see a concrete truck in the upper middle part of the frame, whose tank is turning. Concrete trucks keep their tanks turning when they're filled with concrete, so that the mixture won't start to set up. This truck was getting ready to be unloaded. Another barely-visible truck is delivering yards of concrete.
http://mondoweiss.net/2010/09/
Philip Weiss: Colonists in occupied Hebron pour concrete for four buildings
Two days ago I visited the occupied Hebron area with Jeff Halper and Salim Shawamreh of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions. I shot this video at Kiryat Arba, a religious ‘settlement’ on stolen Palestinian lands in the hills outside Hebron. You can see that the settlement freeze that has supposedly stopped construction of illegal colonies in the West Bank and that is due to expire in three days is being openly flouted. Look closely on the right in this video and toward the beginning you will see a white concrete truck leaving the settlement. Then you will see a crane for pouring concrete arched over forms on the second floors of four new houses. And if you look very closely, about halfway through the video, you will see a concrete truck in the upper middle part of the frame, whose tank is turning. Concrete trucks keep their tanks turning when they're filled with concrete, so that the mixture won't start to set up. This truck was getting ready to be unloaded. Another barely-visible truck is delivering yards of concrete.
http://mondoweiss.net/2010/09/
Hebron is the West Bank in miniature
By Ulrike Putz While diplomats and leaders seek to find a path to Middle East peace, Jewish 'settlers' in the heart of the West Bank's second biggest city insist that they are going nowhere. Indeed, their thirst for settlement construction is far from sated.
The centre of the city, the second largest in the West Bank, is no longer the lively place it once was. Now, a Jewish 'settlement' dominates the heart of the city. Ninety families have settled here -- a right-wing, ideologically motivated group interested in "taking back" Hebron from the Palestinians.
The result is nothing short of a ghost town guarded by hundreds of Israeli soldiers. For the benefit of 800 Jews living in Hebron, a city of 170,000 people, Palestinian life in the city centre has come to a standstill.
Indeed, a visit to Hebron can destroy any hopes that the recently started Middle East peace talks might find success. It is here in Hebron that the Israeli occupation of the West Bank shows its ugliest face.
The city centre is divided into sectors. There are streets that are open to settler traffic but which may only be used by Palestinian pedestrians. Some streets are closed to Palestinians altogether. Along Shuhada Street, once a main arterial through the Hebron market, all Palestinian shops are shuttered. The Israeli military ordered them closed "due to security concerns". More than 1,800 Arab families lost their livelihoods as a result.
Peace, even conciliation, seems extremely remote in Hebron. In Kiryat Arba, a separate ‘settlement’ at the edge of town, the settlers have erected a monument to Baruch Goldstein. A Jewish doctor, Goldstein stormed the Ibrahimi Mosque -- known to Jews as the Tomb of the Patriarchs -- in Hebron in 1994 and killed 29 praying Muslims.
There are both religious and political reasons for why the settlers have sought out Hebron. On the one hand, the Tomb of the Patriarchs is revered as the burial site of Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca, and Jacob and Leah. Its religious importance for the Jewish people is second only to Jerusalem. On the other hand, however, the settlements are seen as recompense for the 1929 massacre of Jewish residents of Hebron at the hands of Palestinians.
"They [the Palestinians] will have to understand that they can't stay here," says David Wilder, spokesman for the Hebron 'settlers'.
MORE AT: http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,719203,00.html
Picture by Rina Castelnuovo
The centre of the city, the second largest in the West Bank, is no longer the lively place it once was. Now, a Jewish 'settlement' dominates the heart of the city. Ninety families have settled here -- a right-wing, ideologically motivated group interested in "taking back" Hebron from the Palestinians.
The result is nothing short of a ghost town guarded by hundreds of Israeli soldiers. For the benefit of 800 Jews living in Hebron, a city of 170,000 people, Palestinian life in the city centre has come to a standstill.
Indeed, a visit to Hebron can destroy any hopes that the recently started Middle East peace talks might find success. It is here in Hebron that the Israeli occupation of the West Bank shows its ugliest face.
The city centre is divided into sectors. There are streets that are open to settler traffic but which may only be used by Palestinian pedestrians. Some streets are closed to Palestinians altogether. Along Shuhada Street, once a main arterial through the Hebron market, all Palestinian shops are shuttered. The Israeli military ordered them closed "due to security concerns". More than 1,800 Arab families lost their livelihoods as a result.
Peace, even conciliation, seems extremely remote in Hebron. In Kiryat Arba, a separate ‘settlement’ at the edge of town, the settlers have erected a monument to Baruch Goldstein. A Jewish doctor, Goldstein stormed the Ibrahimi Mosque -- known to Jews as the Tomb of the Patriarchs -- in Hebron in 1994 and killed 29 praying Muslims.
There are both religious and political reasons for why the settlers have sought out Hebron. On the one hand, the Tomb of the Patriarchs is revered as the burial site of Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca, and Jacob and Leah. Its religious importance for the Jewish people is second only to Jerusalem. On the other hand, however, the settlements are seen as recompense for the 1929 massacre of Jewish residents of Hebron at the hands of Palestinians.
"They [the Palestinians] will have to understand that they can't stay here," says David Wilder, spokesman for the Hebron 'settlers'.
MORE AT: http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,719203,00.html
Picture by Rina Castelnuovo
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